Where Are You?
by Avalea
Summary: After a death in the family, Soda must take over things...only if he can survive the many trials and temptations, not a happy ending...
1. Where Are You?

Disclaimer - Hey. Basically I don't own any of these characters and I certainly am not getting rich off of them. If you get depressed easily I advise you not to read this. I'm sorry it's not a bright, cheery story, but I'm not in the mood to write something like that. It's short and I will only do a continuation if people really like it, which I doubt you will.  
  
~~Where Are You~~  
The smiling faces on the television screen were telling him of the weather that would surely be coming within the next few days. Rain, about to put a depressing end to a long month of sweet sunshine. Sunshine that he didn't even notice, for he was too busy mechanically doing his job and helping his brothers. But now he didn't even talk to them. He was far too busy putting up the walls and hoping that someone would tear them down, push down the stone that was keeping him from the outside world, a world where he used to live, where he used to love. But he had no more feelings; nothing was the same since.since it happened. He could still hear the sirens of the cop cars as the young man was shot down; see the crooked and deranged smile on the bloodied lips. The police officers kept shooting, while he cried his silent tears and took everyone home, then started to play the part of the protective brother, as always. But he knew things would never again be the same as they had been before.  
  
He got up off the itchy couch and returned to his room. He sat on his soft bed that was slightly stained red. The red that would release him from his pain. Red used to be his favorite color, but now it only reminded him of the pain he caused to himself and others every day. He turned over to his side, his left arm scarred and puffy. Opening the drawer he took out his comfort, his small, yet incredibly sharp blade that he had kept with him since that night. Wincing from pain, he drew lines on his left arm, and watched in silent awe as the red started to show. It dripped onto the other splotches of blood on his bed and he smiled as he thought about the amazement of this color, this relief.  
  
Weakened from blood loss and depressed as another day came to a close, he took the blade and shoved it deep into his skin, deep, but not dangerously deep. The skin puffed up and it turned that color of sweet relief, his color of comfort. He sighed as he pulled the blade out of his skin and rolled onto his back. He felt alive. He needed his pain and his red to make sure he was still real; to make sure he was still alive. He was controlled by his life and this was something he commanded. He quietly chuckled as he wondered what they would think of him if they found out about this. They wouldn't understand and he knew it. The voice of Dally would forever be with him, telling him how worthless he is and how much his death was in vain.  
Once again a face flashed into the bleeding man's head. This time it was of Johnny, resting in the hospital bed. His face contorted from the pain he took in with each breath. He could see the big eyes growing dull with each day. If he knew then what he knows now, he would have taken a knife and sliced open Johnny's wrists, only to see the blood that would bring him comfort. 'Death' he thought, 'Death is the only comfort.'  
  
But he could never do it. He could never bring himself to the task. Could never slice deep enough for fear of too much pain, or not enough suffering. He loved pain, yes, but it was the suffering that he wanted. His view was twisted, he knew, but he needed to hear people scream when he screamed and bleed when he bled. He needed the world to comfort him, but all he had was his small, sharp knife, his one and only love.  
  
He didn't want to be a coward; he didn't want to be this way. He wanted to be like he always had been, the strong one with a great family. Once again he turned round and took his knife from its place in the drawer. He sat up and immediately the blood from his left arm washed down his shirt, though it wasn't a lot, most of the red had already crusted on his arm or the bed.  
He looked at a picture of his brothers as he put the cold steel against his arm. The picture turned red in his mind when he pushed the blade in. He ran the blade dawn his arm, down to the wrist.  
  
He could hear the front door open and he knew that his brothers were home. He could hear them putting down the grocery bags and yelling about who broke the eggs. 'They don't even wonder where I am.' He thought sadly and finally let all the tears come down his face. With despair, and a newfound strength, he pushed the smooth blade down on his wrist and took the ever- famous slice of death.  
  
He sat on the bed of blood, he had cut himself dozens of times and now he was so weakened from blood loss that he couldn't see and it was hard to stay awake. His brothers never called for him and he knew they wouldn't. He knew they didn't care. Finally he shut his eyes and the peaceful darkness came to him.  
  
A minute later, if only he had stayed awake, he would have heard Ponyboy ask, "Darry, where are you?"  
  
~~Please read and review!!! 


	2. And NoOne Else

~~And No-One Else~~  
  
The door to the room was shut when Ponyboy Curtis went back there. He smelled something, a sour yet sickeningly sweet smell that he couldn't quite place. He thought Darry was asleep, so he walked down the hallway to his own room that he shared with his brother, Sodapop. He turned the handle of his door and walked into the messy room. Dried up pizza crusts lay on top of soiled clothes, empty cigarette packages littered the floor. The air in the room was musty, spoiled with cigarette smoke and lighter fluid.  
  
Pony lay down on his bed, letting the soft mattress message his sore back. He closed his eyes for a moment a thought, as he always found himself doing, about Johnny and Dally. He remembered Dally smiling as his blood spilled across the road, he remembered Darry's blank stare as he hurried everyone home and started demanding order. Pony opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. They had a ceiling fan once, but a couple weeks ago he tried to swing on it and it broke. Darry, surprisingly, hadn't been furious with him, he just told him to not do it again and then went back to his room.  
  
'His room.' Pony thought. He was now thinking about that smell, that odor that made his hair stand on end, made his lips quiver and his stomach churn. He had smelled it before, he just couldn't remember when.  
  
The answer struck him almost three hours later as he and Soda lay sleeping in their bed. He was dreaming, once again, of Dally and his death. He threw Soda's hand away from him, almost like it was contaminated with a contagious disease and ran down the hallway to the door, Darry's room.  
  
"What the hell is your problem Ponyboy?" he heard Soda yell. A half-naked Curtis came walking down the hallway but stopped dead in his tracks when he smelled it. Obviously his mind was working faster than Pony's for as soon as his face contorted he ran to the door. It was locked. Both boys knew that they had to get in the room, had to rush into it and find out where Darry was, find out if he was just sleeping. Soda rushed at the door and it flew open, but as soon as he walked into the room his legs quivered and he looked away.  
  
The walls were red. They had been cream and solid, but now they dripped in greeting. The sweet smell overtook them again as the musty air surrounded the hallway from the room where it was trapped. Claw marks on the headboard showed pain and anguish in every mark, some deeper than the others. The bed was stained the color of red with their brother, Darry, in the middle. Soda walked up to Darry and sat him up. Blood crusted around him and stuck to him as he sat up, leaving the only white part of the sheets behind. Marks on Darry's arm and muscled stomach showed depression. The smile on his face showed contorted happiness. The razor that had fallen from the dead man's hand had rusted with Darry's tears. Soda called for Pony, but when no answer came, he looked back to see his baby brother on the floor, breathing hard, his fall from the faint making him hit his head on the side of the bed.  
  
The sirens blared and the police officers questioned both of the brothers carefully. Did he seem happy? Did he ever cry? Did he ever seek help? Soda, who was now the oldest, the caretaker of the house and family, didn't know how to answer these questions. He shook his head no to every question and just tried to get the image of his dead brother out of his head. A tall, lanky police officer with greasy hair and far too much cologne came up to him and told him that they would be provided a hotel to stay in for the next 3 days as cleaning crews cleaned up the blood.  
  
The hotel was cold, as most are, and empty yet so many people were there. The indoor pool gave off a chlorine smell, but to Soda any smell was better than blood. He looked at Pony who was watching the small TV and eating a chicken sandwich from room service. Soda looked at the little chill bumps that kept appearing on his skin, the bumps that would never leave him. He closed his eyes and relaxed his mind to think about what lay ahead. He was the sole benefactor now; he was the one who had to take care of Ponyboy. He couldn't do this by himself, but he knew he had to. He knew that no matter what he did, Ponyboy was in his care and he had to do it right.  
  
That night, Soda couldn't sleep; he was still haunted by the sight of the red walls dripping their horrible hello. He walked into the bathroom and as soon as the door closed, the vent and light clicked on. He looked at himself in the mirror, he was pale, paler than usual. He stared at himself for a while and then his eye caught a little gleam of light on the counter. He looked towards it and saw that it was the sharp razor Pony had used for shaving his almost non-existent facial hair. 'This is what Darry found to be so helpful?' he asked himself. He picked up the object. It was cool in his heated skin. He put the sharp end to his thumb and smiled. He couldn't understand why Darry would inflict pain on himself; he just didn't get it. Ponyboy coughed suddenly and in the near silence, Soda jumped. He listened for Pony to settle down and sleep again. He put down the razor, but he noted that it changed somehow. It was different; there was a tiny speck of red on it. He looked at his thumb and noticed that he must have accidentally cut himself when he jumped. It didn't even hurt. He looked at his blood and he was slightly reassured by it. Soda picked up the razor again and this time put it to the palm of his hand. After a quick mental fight, he counted to ten, and when he got to one, made a semi-deep slice. After a second or two, blood started to pour down his hand. He smiled and put away the razor. He had control over something now.  
  
~~Ok, once again, please read and review!!!! ~~ 


	3. And Then There Were None

~~And Then There Were None~~  
  
The day was just beginning as the light rays of the sun poured into the hotel room. Ponyboy grumbled and opened his eyes slightly, but quickly closed them again as the radiance attacked his optical nerves. He looked to the right of him and soon realized that Soda wasn't there. He suddenly felt unsafe. He needed Soda's protective arm around him, needed him to chase away the demons. Standing up, he immediately noticed the smell of the indoor pool and he felt a little more comfortable. He felt more closed in, a little safer with the closeness of it. He laughed at himself. He was being silly.  
  
The door opened. The person that entered was familiar, yet a stranger. It was Soda, but he was different. His eyes, though the same as yesterday, were glazed and strange. He walked to the bathroom with a hungry look in his eyes, as a man in the desert looking for water may have been. Ponyboy was about to question him, but knew better as Soda shot him a dangerous look. The bathroom door slammed shut and Pony could hear the water turn on.  
  
The police officer called a few minutes later. Pony answered the phone and he quickly noticed the stern note in this official's voice. He gave him directions to the police station where Soda needed to go, where Soda needed to be to sign the papers that would make him the legal guardian of Ponyboy.  
  
He got up and let the slightly bloodied bathwater run off his pale body. Soda walked outside the bathroom, making sure everything in it was cleaned off and there was no trace of blood, then sat beside Ponyboy on the cold hotel bed. After looking at Pony for a while, he finally asked in a cold and cruel voice, who called. Pony explained and sent Soda down to the police department. With him gone, Pony was now alone. He smiled to himself, he had never been completely happy, he had always been alone. Now he was even more alone, now he was the odd one out, the one who would be pitied and cried for because so much tragedy had happened in his life. He couldn't take it. His mind swam and he lay down on the bed. He didn't even realize he was tired, but he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. His dream had come back, as it had on so many nights since Dally and Johnny died.  
  
He stepped into the pool. It was thick and gooey, but also red, the color of his favorite stone, the ruby. A hand stuck out from beneath the mass, he reached out to it and it was cold as ice, cold as death. He stepped farther into the pool and his foot stepped on something squishy. Yellowish pus came to the top of the pool; followed by what his foot had impacted. A brown eye was halfway torn apart, the pus oozing out of it. Ponyboy reached for this liquid and grabbed a handful of it. It burned his hand and was thick between his fingers. He cleaned his hand off in the dirty water, the water that is there for every person in his situation. He started to swim to the other side of this never-ending pool. At each kick, he pushed up some mutilated body. Some bodies had giant holes in their heads, or their entire jaw blown off, some had rope burns on their neck from a noose, some were foaming at the mouth from too many pills. Many of them stayed at the bottom, where they had drowned themselves, but most had the telltale knife slice on each wrist. He swam harder and harder, hoping to get to the other side, but he never made it.  
  
He woke up suddenly, sweating and panting. He saw that the light of the bathroom door was on and he knew that Soda was back. Pony rolled himself out of bed, the horrible images from his dream still playing parties in his mind. He could see the cut marks on the bodies, the slices, and the pool where he knew he would end up. All those people were alone, but he didn't want to be. He knew he would go to the pool, the pool where all those who do that to themselves go, but he didn't want to be alone. He sat on his knees on the floor and looked between the mattresses. His hand groped for the blade that Two-Bit had given him. The long, sharp, deadly blade.  
  
He headed for the bathroom and felt for the handle. To his surprise, it wasn't locked. He opened the door and found Soda lying in his own little pool of blood. He sighed in relief as he saw Soda's chest slowly rise up and down, indicating he was still alive. He grabbed his blade tighter, and waited for Soda to open his eyes.  
  
He did. Soda opened those glazed eyes of his, and before he could say anything, Ponyboy Curtis plunged the blade into Soda's chest. Pony twisted the blade and turned it, making more blood spurt out from the wound. Soda tried to yell out but Pony quickly covered his mouth. Pony took out the knife and shoved his hand inside the knife wound. His small fingers were slowly covered with the red. The red liquid, he needed it. He didn't want it anymore, he needed it desperately. He took his own hand out and shoved the bloody appendage into his mouth, lapping up the blood.  
  
He looked at the bathtub. It was filled to the top with blood. Just like that pool were they all go. Those victims of others and themselves. He looked at Soda and knew he was dead. Pony gently got into the tub with Soda and made himself as comfortable as could be. He took the blade in his right hand, and his brother's arm in his left. He took the blade and sliced his own neck. He grew weak and couldn't breathe. He plunged down into the bottom of the pool and slowly drowned.  
  
Somewhere far away another girl had the dream about the pool of blood. But this time, two new people were added. A tall boy floated to the top, his heart ripped out and a smaller boy she pulled up with her feet, knowing he had drowned. The nest day that girl went into her own bathtub and killed herself. The pool of blood is constantly being filled up, and it always will be ready for another poor, lost, suicidal soul that it can misguide.  
  
~~Ok, all done. If you don't understand what "the pool" is exactly then email me at kornsaysimcool14@yahoo.com, and I will explain. Please read and review and I hope you liked. 


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